Tense problem

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Soumita Ghosh: Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts; Posts: 111; Joined: Sat Apr 14, 2012 11:09 amFollowed by: 7 members; Thanked: 1 times

by Soumita Ghosh » Wed Jan 30, 2013 3:43 pm

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As per my understanding inhabitants of the region were speaking Greek before records were found so is it not correct to use had been as records found is in past.??

"at that time" is indicating dating back 2200 years or records found? if "at that time" is indicating record found then it is correct to use were. but if "at that time" is indicating dating back 2200 years then the tense should be had been??

can anyone explain me please my doubt.

Thanks a lot for your help !!

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Source: Beat The GMAT — Sentence Correction | Wed Jan 30, 2013 3:43 pm

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brianlange77: GMAT Instructor; Posts: 417; Joined: Mon Jan 07, 2013 8:49 pmFollowed by: 93 members; Location: Chapel Hill, NC; Thanked: 132 times; GMAT Score:750

by brianlange77 » Wed Jan 30, 2013 6:04 pm

Soumita Ghosh wrote:
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As per my understanding inhabitants of the region were speaking Greek before records were found so is it not correct to use had been as records found is in past.??

"at that time" is indicating dating back 2200 years or records found? if "at that time" is indicating record found then it is correct to use were. but if "at that time" is indicating dating back 2200 years then the tense should be had been??

can anyone explain me please my doubt.

Thanks a lot for your help !!

Good question -- the core/main part of this sentence is "The inhabitants of the region at that time <simple past tense> were .... " Everything else in the earlier parts of the sentence is just additional context to set-up the sentence.

When in doubt, always use the simplest tense possible.

Hope this helps.

-Brian

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Soumita Ghosh: Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts; Posts: 111; Joined: Sat Apr 14, 2012 11:09 amFollowed by: 7 members; Thanked: 1 times

by Soumita Ghosh » Thu Jan 31, 2013 2:41 pm

Thanks a lot for your response Brian .

It is not still clear to me..

Can you just explain me more elaborately?? It will be a great help for me !!

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GMATGuruNY: GMAT Instructor; Posts: 15539; Joined: Tue May 25, 2010 12:04 pmFollowed by: 1906 members; Location: New York, NY; Thanked: 13060 times; GMAT Score:790

by GMATGuruNY » Thu Jan 31, 2013 7:53 pm

Records found on papyrus fragments dating back 2,200 years indicate that the inhabitants were part of a widespread culture of Greek-speaking people.

Here, found serves not as a verb but as an ADJECTIVE modifying records.
What KIND of records?
Records FOUND on papyrus fragments.

Similarly, dating serves not as a verb but as an ADJECTIVE modifying fragments.
What KIND of fragments?
Fragments DATING back 2,200 years.

Here is the core of the sentence:
Records INDICATE that the inhabitants WERE part of a widespread culture.
Since the main verb (indicate) is in the present tense, were (simple past) is sufficient to convey the proper sequence of events.

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viveksingh222: Senior | Next Rank: 100 Posts; Posts: 39; Joined: Tue Nov 06, 2012 4:15 am; Thanked: 1 times

by viveksingh222 » Thu Jan 31, 2013 10:31 pm

Thank you Mitch, you keep your language very simple, even a non native speaker can understand with out getting lost in complex English grammatical jargon.

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